 WASHINGTON: The United States is building an array of secret new drone bases to conduct strikes against al Qaeda targets in Somalia and Yemen, according to the Washington Post.
| Who couldn't wait to blab about it... |
| Safe as houses. I don't know anyone who reads the Washington Post for information, do you? (Bobby doesn't count -- he uses them for fisking material.) |
One of the new installations is being set up in Ethiopia, a close US ally in the fight against the Shebab that controls much of Somalia, while another is being established in the Seychelles, the Post reported late Tuesday.
| That would solve the problem of not being able to get enough assets into the region to patrol it effectively. And if we can hunt Haqqanis with drones, why not pirates? |
| All those people who lusted after the pirate-hunting cruises which turned out to be fake are going to be soooooo jealous! |
| Them poolside lawn chairs at Nellis are going to get quite a workout... |
A small fleet of so-called "hunter-killer" drones - able to fire Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs - already based on the Indian Ocean archipelago resumed operations this month after a pilot mission demonstrated that they could effectively patrol Somalia from there, it said.
The Post blabbed said the US is also conducting drone missions over both Somalia and Yemen from the small African country Djibouti, seeking to weaken al Qaeda affiliates in both countries.
"It's a conscious recognition that those are the hot spots developing right now," it quoted a former senior US military official as saying.
In late June the Post reported that two senior commanders of Somalia's Shebab insurgency believed to have ties to al Qaeda in Yemen were wounded in what appeared to have been the first US drone strike on the country. |